International News Briefs for Tuesday January, 7, 2025
HAVANA TIMES – Here are the top international news stories compiled by Democracy Now on Tuesday January 7, 2024.
U.N.’s Humanitarian Efforts in Gaza Hit “Breaking Point” Amid Israeli Attacks on Aid Workers
Jan 07, 2025
The United Nations is warning its efforts to bring humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are at a “breaking point,” after Israeli forces opened fire on a World Food Programme convoy over the weekend. Staffers documented at least 16 bullet holes in their aid convoy’s three vehicles, saying the shooting left them “terrified.” Earlier today, an aid worker with central Gaza’s Ma’an distribution center died from injuries sustained from an attack on the flour distribution site Sunday.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry reports another day of Israeli attacks has killed at least 31 Palestinians and injured 57 others. Among the dead is neonatologist Dr. Thabat Saleem, killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Just hours before her killing, the 30-year-old Dr. Saleem had finished a volunteer shift providing care to women and children at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Meanwhile, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel reports Israel’s military is refusing to reveal the location of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the jailed director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, and won’t let his lawyers meet him. This is Palestinian nurse Mohammed al-Namnam, who was arrested alongside Dr. Safiya when Israeli forces stormed the hospital on December 27.
Mohammed al-Namnam: “We were treated violently and subjected to beatings. They don’t distinguish. There’s no mercy or any kind of humanity toward medical staff. The Israeli troops forced us to remove our clothes, and they hit us with weapons and sticks.”
We’ll have more on Gaza later in the broadcast when we speak with Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha.
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Canada’s Justin Trudeau Resigns as Liberal Party Leader and Prime Minister
Jan 07, 2025
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday he is stepping down as leader of Canada’s Liberal Party after mounting speculation and internal dissent.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust, nationwide, competitive process.”
Justin Trudeau has been Canada’s prime minister since 2015 but had faced plummeting popular support, as well as opposition within his own party, with his finance minister Chrystia Freeland resigning last month amid a public spat over how to respond to Trump’s vow to impose a 25% tariff on Canadian goods. Freeland is considered one of the possible successors to Trudeau, as is close ally Dominic LeBlanc, who was appointed to replace Freeland in December. Liberal Party economic adviser Mark Carney and Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly are also considered top contenders. Canada is scheduled to hold federal elections this year.
Polls indicate Canada’s Conservatives would win elections if they were held today. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who’s been compared to Donald Trump, has pushed anti-labor and anti-regulation measures and called for expanding oil and gas development. On Monday, Trump responded to Trudeau’s announcement by posting on his social media site, “If Canada merged with the US, there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them. Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!”
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Vice President Kamala Harris Certifies Donald Trump’s 2024 Election Victory
Jan 07, 2025
Congress has certified Donald Trump as the winner of the 2024 presidential election. On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris oversaw the process of certifying her own defeat, acknowledging Trump’s 312 Electoral College votes to her 226. Monday’s ceremony came four years to the day after a violent mob of Trump supporters smashed their way into the Capitol, demanding then-Vice President Mike Pence refuse to certify Joe Biden’s win. Vice President Harris said after Monday’s certification that she was simply doing her constitutional duty.
Vice President Kamala Harris: “America’s democracy is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it, every single person, their willingness to fight for and respect the importance of our democracy. Otherwise, it is very fragile, and it will not be able to withstand moments of crisis. And today America’s democracy stood.”
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Trump Seeks to Block Release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Findings
Jan 07, 2025
Lawyers for President-elect Trump have asked a federal court to block the public release of reports by special counsel Jack Smith into the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election. Trump’s lawyers filed the request with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge in Florida who previously ruled Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.
Here in New York, Judge Juan Merchan has denied Trump’s request to postpone his sentencing Friday. Trump was convicted on 34 felony charges of attempting to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election by falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
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Rudy Giuliani Found in Contempt of Court in Georgia Election Workers’ Defamation Case
Jan 07, 2025
Image Credit: Jane Rosenberg
A federal judge has declared former New York City mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court for failing to facilitate the handover of $11 million in personal assets he owes to election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. It’s part of the $148 million defamation judgment the pair won after Giuliani falsely accused them of committing election fraud in Georgia in 2020.
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Biden Bans New Offshore Oil Drilling Along Most of U.S. Coastline
Jan 07, 2025
President Biden has issued new protections for U.S. waters, banning new drilling off the Atlantic coast; the eastern Gulf of Mexico; the Pacific coast off California, Oregon and Washington; and part of the Bering Sea. While environmental groups hailed the move, President-elect Trump responded by vowing to reverse the ban immediately upon taking office, and fulfilling his campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill.” It’s not clear if Trump can do so without going through Congress.
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U.S. Transfers 11 Yemeni Prisoners from Guantánamo to Oman; 15 Prisoners Remain
Jan 07, 2025
The U.S. has transferred 11 Yemeni prisoners from Guantánamo Bay to Oman, nearly halving the number of Guantánamo’s remaining detainees. None of the released men were ever charged or given due process during their more than two-decades-long imprisonment. Rights groups are calling on the Biden administration to resettle Guantánamo’s last 15 prisoners and close the prison once and for all. Six of those remaining have never been charged with a crime, and three have been cleared for transfer by the Biden administration.
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Pentagon Reaches Historic Settlement with LGBTQ+ Vets Dismissed Under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
Jan 07, 2025
Image Credit: Pentagon handout
The Pentagon has reached a historic settlement with some 35,000 LGBTQ veterans who were dismissed under the discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” or similar policies, which forced military members to remain in the closet. Under the settlement, the discharge records of those affected will be restored from “less than honorable” to “honorable,” granting them access to veterans services and benefits they’d previously been denied. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was repealed in 2011.
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Minneapolis City Council Approves Consent Decree Mandating Federal Oversight of Police
Jan 07, 2025
The city of Minneapolis has agreed to a federal consent decree mandating reforms to its police department. Under the agreement, Minneapolis must monitor and investigate allegations of police misconduct, limit the use of force, improve officer training and respect protesters’ First Amendment rights. Officials raced to finalize the agreement before Donald Trump’s inauguration, as the former Trump administration opposed the use of consent decrees to reform police departments. The agreement comes more than four-and-a-half years after George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, sparking a global movement for police accountability, prison abolition and racial justice.
This comes just days after the Justice Department submitted its proposed consent decree over inhumane and brutal conditions faced by prisoners at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia. Dozens of prisoners have died there in recent years, including Lashawn Thompson, a Black man who was being held in the jail’s psychiatric wing, where his family says he was “eaten alive” by insects and bedbugs in his cell.
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At Least 95 Die as Magnitude 7.1 Earthquake Strikes Tibet
Jan 07, 2025
Image Credit: Courtesy of Tibet Fire and Rescue
Chinese media are reporting at least 95 people were killed and 130 others injured when a large earthquake struck the Shigatse region of Tibet earlier today. Early reports from the region suggested hundreds of houses had collapsed from the magnitude 7.1 earthquake.
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Austrian Far-Right Party Tasked with Forming Ruling Coalition
Jan 07, 2025
Austria could be ruled by a far-right government for the first time since World War II after the leader of the extreme-right Freedom Party, Herbert Kickl, was tasked with forming a new ruling coalition. This comes after Austria’s main centrist parties failed to establish their own coalition government. The Freedom Party won Austria’s parliamentary elections in September on a nationalist, anti-immigrant platform, sending shockwaves throughout Europe. It was founded in the wake of World War II by former Nazis. Hundreds of protesters gathered in Vienna Monday.
Toni: “Persecution of marginalized groups, mass deportations, cuts to social benefits, a return of a fascist state. We say that we have learned something from our history, but then at the same time we elect a chancellor like Kickl and leave him in power. We have learned nothing from the past.”
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French Neo-Nazi Leader Jean-Marie Le Pen Dies at 96
Jan 07, 2025
The far-right ultranationalist French leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has died at age 96. Le Pen led France’s National Front for decades, unsuccessfully running for president five times. He became the face of France’s anti-immigrant extreme right and was repeatedly fined and convicted for hate speech and contesting crimes against humanity. His daughter Marine Le Pen is now head of the National Rally, formally the National Front.